A major cost of motion picture presentations is the labor necessary for film handling and services. All movie theaters currently require at least one projectionist whose sole responsibility is to handle the film being presented. His primary functions are to change film reels in order to present a double feature and to rewind the presented film in order to be able to re-present it to the audience.
In order to become competitive for the entertainment dollar and to encourage motion picture viewers to leave their television sets and view a movie at a theater, theater owners have tried to economize and reduce the cost of attending a theater. It quickly became apparent that one of the few areas where costs could be cut was labor and automation was the key. Based upon this information, a new type of theater evolved; namely, the mini-theater. A mini-theater in theory could be operated by a single manager who would sell and collect the tickets while refreshments were purchased from vending machines. The only problem was that the manager, while handling all his other duties, could not be in the projection room handling the film; therefore, a projectionist was still necessary. The need for a second individual just for the purpose of film handling partially negates the major advantage of the mini-theater. Other cost cutting developments, such as housing a plurality of theaters all in one building, wherein one person could sell and collect tickets for all the theaters, also reduces costs, but a projectionist is still required for each theater.
Many attempts have been made to provide a motion picture projection system which is fully or semi-automatic and eliminates the need for a projectionist. Most of these attempts involve the use of film systems wherein two reels are mounted vertically on each side of a projector and the film is unwound from one reel, twisted 90.degree., projected, twisted 90.degree. again and wound around the other reel. A system similar to this is used quite extensively on aircraft. The aforementioned system and all known systems of endless loop projection have a number of inherent problems. One problem which is peculiarly troublesome in an aircraft is the inability of the system to operate in any plane other than vertical. Therefore, at least 3 feet of height is required between the cabin ceiling and the outer fuselage, to accommodate a full length motion picture reel. Additionally, the extra reel and associated mechanism entails a serious weight penalty which is a major aircraft problem. Another problem, which is common to all current endless loop film systems is one that is inherent in the basic principle of unwinding the innermost convolution of film and then rewinding it as the outermost convolution.
When the innermost convolution of film is pulled from the center of the film pack the length of film being unwound rubs against the next outer convolution of film under high friction which causes a scrubbing action between the two lengths of film. This scrubbing action scratches the surface of the film, seriously destroying its projection qualities and causes excessive wear, which leads to breakage. These problems have served as a deterrant to the expansion of endless loop film system utilization and have seriously impeded the cost effectiveness of endless loop film use in mini-theaters, maxi-theaters and aircraft.
Prior art references cited in the parent application Ser. No. 191,460 are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,064,914 to Windhorst, 1,825,142 to Bruno, 2,830,812 to Nash et al, Canadian Patent 608,977 to Fleming et al and German Patent 505,659 to Pathe.